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Courtesy of the News and Observer
Matt Dees, Staff Writer
DURHAM - Durham employee salaries lag
behind those of their peers elsewhere, and it will cost millions to
catch up, city leaders learned Friday.
The news will have a dramatic impact on next year's budget, forcing City
Manager Patrick Baker to cut several proposed new programs, including a
comprehensive curbside waste collection program.
Salary ranges in Durham were between 5 percent and 22 percent lower than
the market average, according to a study presented Friday by the
Dallas-based Waters Consulting Group Inc. The company's contract with
the city was not to exceed $175,000.
Durham salaries were compared with neighbors such as Raleigh and Chapel
Hill as well as cities similar in size and demography such as
Fayetteville; Norfolk, Va.; and Knoxville, Tenn.
The total annual cost to bring salary ranges in line is $9.5 million,
some of which would be paid for by water and sewer fees. Most, however,
would come from the general fund.
Council members are leaning toward paying $6 million of that next year,
with $5.1 million coming from the general fund.
The rest would be phased in starting in the 2009-10 fiscal year.
"The message today is we have to pay the IOUs that have piled up,"
council member Mike Woodard said.
Though the salary range adjustments would be applied to all the city's
2,400 positions (about 300 of which are vacant), City Council members
were confronted by a sea of uniformed police and firefighters Friday.
More than 100 showed up at City Hall to pressure the council to action.
Police Sgt. David Addison, president of the Triangle Police Benevolent
Association, and Bill Towner, vice president of the Durham Professional
Firefighters Association, both said they were pleased with Friday's
discussion but want to see follow-through.
"What happened here today is very encouraging," Towner said. "But it's
nothing that we haven't been telling City Council the last four or five
years."
Both men can accept phasing in the new salary ranges over two years so
long as the council commits to implementing the new system fully.
"We're pulling from the same pool of employees as Chapel Hill, Raleigh
and Greensboro," Addison said. "If we can't compete with them, then
we're not going to get the same qualified people as they are."
Council members voiced strong support for increasing salaries across the
board but paid particular attention to the public safety personnel who
made up their immediate audience.
"We've got to bite the bullet; we're behind," council member Eugene
Brown said. "It costs us money when people leave. It's either pay now or
pay later."
Baker will have to spend next week cutting items from the budget to make
room, a task complicated by Mayor Bill Bell's call for a smaller tax
increase than what Baker has proposed.
Bell would like to see the proposed tax rate drop from 56 cents per $100
property valuation to 54 cents.
With each penny on the tax rate yielding $2.17 million, that means
cutting $4.34 million from Baker's proposed $356 million budget.
One proposed new program, a $3.2 million comprehensive waste pickup,
appears to be headed first to the chopping block.
"It's clear that some priorities just aren't going to be met in favor of
the top priorities," Baker said.
"Gas costs and employee compensation are the drivers of this budget. How
much can we afford to pay? How much can we ask taxpayers to pay in these
difficult economic times?"
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